


better than a simulation

by AshDoesFandom



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon)
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies, Canon Compliant, F/M, Friendship, Oneshot, Pre-Relationship, Rated T for language, Season 2, Tumblr Prompts, my man Brad done fucked up, simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshDoesFandom/pseuds/AshDoesFandom
Summary: “You’re the one who fucked off in the Titan to god-knows-where,” Mariner grits out.So they’re actually doing this. Boimler swallows hard. Takes a breath. Tries to quell the anxiety welling in his gut. “I’m sorry.”“Right after you said you didn’t care about rank or shit,” she adds, twisting the knife.“Yeah. It was really shitty of me.”or, Boimler fucks up.
Relationships: Brad Boimler & Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler/Beckett Mariner
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	better than a simulation

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr Prompt:](https://asexualmorticia.tumblr.com/post/633699474060050432/hey-could-you-write-something-shippy-about) Hey!! Could you write something shippy about Boimler and Mariner? What if Boimler regularly spent time in the holodeck acting out certain scenarios and situations with Mariner? 👀

She glares at him, mouth pressed into a thin line. “What happened to having each other’s backs? I put my ass on the line for you. Repeatedly.” 

He winces. This conversation is not going how he’d planned. “Mariner, I-”

Mariner clenches her fists and straightens. “No, you don’t get to say anything after what you pulled. Fuck you.” 

The image freezes and Boimler resets the simulation. 

What seems like years ago, he remembers lecturing Tendi overusing the Holodecks for fun. The details are fuzzy. It was before the “GUYS I MADE US INTO A MOVIE'' incident with Mariner, but after that weirdass thing with Rutherford and his rogue program. He thinks she and Mariner had been using it to watch Ransom in an array of—what he now admits-hysterical situations—but can’t be sure.

She and Mariner have gotten up to so much shit, he can’t keep track. 

He doesn’t know why he’s remembering it now. It was a random conversation that happened a long time ago—a few months after Tendi was assigned to the Cerritos? –so there’s no reason why he should be thinking about it right now. 

Liar, a smug voice intones in his head. It sounds vaguely like Mariner. Boimler aggressively shoves it down. 

_This isn’t for fun_ , he anxiously tells the voice in his head. The voice is quiet. It does nothing to soothe the turning of his stomach. 

It’s been three months since Boimler requested a transfer back to the Cerritos. Three months since he’d run into Rutherford and Tendi on shore leave and the three of them got swept up into a ridiculous, interplanetary civil war that took three different starship crews to settle out. Three months since he’d almost died more times than he can count on all his fingers and toes, three months since he thought Tendi had died, miles away from her home, on a world which would never remember her name, three months since Mariner swept in and fixed everything. 

It’s been three months. 

Not that he’s counting. 

Somewhere between being in a remote alien prison with Tendi and hiking for a month in a perpetually dark wilderness with Rutherford, Boimler had come to the belated conclusion that his career didn’t take precedence over his friends.

(Also, if he’s being completely honest, he missed the chaos of being a lower deck ensign. Not that he still doesn’t want to be in the upper ranks. Just not without his dumb, dumb friends.)

After it was all over—and he’d realized that Tendi was alive—he put in his transfer request, surprising all his peers. 

“This just isn’t a good fit for me,” was his official statement. 

Captain Riker gave him a bland look. “You worked with Beckett, didn’t you.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were amused. 

“Is it that obvious?”

“She rubs off on people. Don’t let her give you a hard time,” he added, signing off on the request. “It was nice working with you, Boimler. If you ever need anything, let me know.” 

And so here he is, a newly minted ensign again, on the lower decks of the Cerritos. 

(Captain Freeman is thrilled. “All operations have been down by 18% since you left. Good to have you back, Boimler.”) 

Tendi and Rutherford seem hyped to have him back-Tendi especially, who’s been a little clingy with everyone since her near-death experience-but are acting uncharacteristically nervous around him. This isn’t a surprise. The tension between him and Mariner when she’d shown up on Roxadt II was insane and was only getting worse with every day. It’s been six weeks since he’d transferred, and she’s found a reason to be in a different room for all six of them.

Hence the simulations. 

_That makes absolutely no fucking sense,_ the Mariner-esque voice in his head sneers. _Just talk to her you fucking wimp._

Boimler ignores it. 

“Scenario A-187,” the clinical voice of the simulation intones. The simulation restarts.

It goes exactly the same way 186 other scenarios had gone. He corners Mariner. She stays quiet. He apologizes. She explodes.

Mariner’s anger had always burnt red hot. He’d first experienced it when an ensign got a little frisky with Tendi after she’d repeatedly told him _no._ Mariner’s fury at the situation felt justified. Vindicated. The ensign had been demoted so hard, Boimler was certain they’d seen the last of him for like. Well, forever. At the time he’d been astonished that she’d managed to pull it off, but after finding out about her familial connection to the Captain, it made sense.

He’d seen a glimpse of that anger a few more times—when Captain Freeman had forced her to go to therapy, after Rutherford had been captured by rogue Klingons, that one-time Ransom tried to promote her. But never toward Boimler.

Oh, she’d get irritated with him. _“Loosen up, Boimler, it’s not that bad.”_

 _“Look, the worst that’ll happen is that we get a note to file-_ stop yelling! _”_

 _“Dude if you don’t chill the_ fuck out _I might actually throw you out of an airlock.”_

Standard Mariner reactions, right? Yeah, she’d been pretty pissed when he took the promotion (his voicemail had been blowing up for the first 48 hours after he transferred), but it had died down fairly quickly so he had logically assumed that she had gotten over it.

He assumed wrong. If her icing him out was to be taken into account. So here he was, six weeks in, desperate and stressed from his friend’s apparent dismissal. The obvious solution, his sleep deprived brain decided, was to simulate a conversation with her using his high-tech program on the holodeck.

This may have not been the best idea. But he’s calculated the probability of anything going wrong and it’s under 3%, so he’s almost guaranteed success.

(So, of course, it blows up in his face, in true Boimler fashion.)

“Okay, I have a pretty high threshold for weird, but this might take the cake,” a voice slowly says.

Boimler startles. Whirls around. Shuts down the simulation. “Ohhh _shit_ -”

“Yeah _shit_ ,” Mariner says, stalking into the room. “What the hell, dude?”

“This isn’t what it looks like!” Boimler sputters out, panicked. The simulation is shut down, leaving them in the empty holodeck room, but the echoes of Holo-Mariner’s rage still resonate between them. Actual Mariner is staring at him, face somewhere between completely shocked and furious.

“Did you use your dumbass hyper realistic program to simulate a situation with me so that you could cheat later?”

“I mean, kinda?”

“Then it’s exactly what it looks like!” Mariner slaps a palm over her eyes.

“Well what was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know—maybe talk to me like a _person_? Not use your creepy, hyper realistic simulations to roleplay it?” She drops her hand and glares up at him. 

Boimler rolls his eyes. “You literally created a simulation to kill the entire crew _because your mom made you go to therapy.”_

“ _Yeah and it fucking worked.”_

“ _Then why are you yelling at me?!”_

“I’m not!” she shrieks. “I’m very calmly telling you to _fucking talk to me next time!”_

“There’s not going to _be_ a next time!”

Mariner stops, mouth open. “What?”

“Look, I get it. I fucked up and you apparently don’t do second chances! I was trying to make things right but clearly it isn’t working. I’ll stay out of your way now.”

Instead of pacifying her, this seems to make Mariner even more furious. “You fucking asshole. what am I supposed to say to that?” she shouts, stomping up to him.

He groans in exasperation. “Apparently nothing, considering you don’t want to talk to me!”

Her hands grab his collar, pulling him down to eye level with her. “I literally _just said_ to talk to me next time!”

“And how was I supposed to do that if you’re avoiding me?”

“You’re the one who fucked off in the _Titan_ to god-knows-where,” Mariner grits out.

So they’re actually doing this. Boimler swallows hard. Takes a breath. Tries to quell the anxiety welling in his gut. “I’m sorry.”

“Right after you said you didn’t care about rank or shit,” she adds, twisting the knife.

“Yeah. It was really shitty of me.”

“And then you ghosted me for like six months.”

Boimler winced. “Yeah—I. Yeah.”

Mariner’s iron grip on his shirt loosens, but she doesn’t let go completely. “That _was_ really shitty of you.”

Not sure what to say, beyond apologizing again, Boimler gives a jerky nod.

“You came back.” She stares at him, eyes unfathomable. “The _Titan_ wasn’t everything you dreamed it would be.”

It’s not a question.

Boimler still has an answer, though. “It was.”

She stiffens. He pushes forward, intent on getting this out while he still has her attention. “It was everything I wanted in a career. I was doing what I wanted, everyone took me seriously. Our missions came straight from the Admiralty and they treated us like we weren’t a joke. I loved it.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I care more about my friends then I do about people taking me seriously.”

Mariner freezes and then lets out a strangled laugh. “Now I think _you’re_ the simulation. Who are you and what have you done with Boimler?” She pokes at his cheek.

He grins. And then falters. “For what it’s worth—and I know it’s not worth much—but. I _am_ sorry. I wasn’t a very good friend.”

“Yeah you weren’t.” She lets go of her grip on his shirt completely and draws back. “You said you were my best friend and then you left. _For Riker._ ”

“That makes me sound like the love interest in a cheesy drama. And like I’m hooking up with Riker.”

“I said what I said.”

Boimler laughs. It feels real for the first time in a long while. “Are we good?”

“No.” Mariner smiles. “I’m going to give you so much shit and you’re gonna grovel for like months and then I’m going to tell my mom that you used to holodeck to simulate certain _situations_ with me.”

“If you do that I’m transferring _back_ ,” Boimler tells her. “Your mom finally likes me; I _don’t_ need her ejecting me out of an airlock.”

“She wouldn’t do that.” Mariner waves him off.

“She totally would.”

“Yeah, she totally would,” she agrees. Grabs his arm and begins dragging him out of the holodeck. “So maybe I won’t tell her. I _am_ telling Tendi though and she’s gonna give you so much shit considering you reemed her out over misusing the holodeck.”

Boimler makes a face. “I’ll probably let her too. I’m such a hypocrite.”

“You are, but it’s super weird to hear you be honest about it. Stop being all apologetic, it’s weird.”

They’ve reached the corridor. Mariner steers them in the direction of the bar. “Only if you promise to deck me if I ever make a dumb decision like that again,” he says, giving in and allowing himself to be manhandled. It’s the least he owes her.

“Deal. And the next time you use your weird, hyper realistic simulator—which doesn’t even fucking _work_ by the way, I’m not _that_ much of a bitch—you gotta promise you’ll use it for sexy reason only.”

“Sexy reasons only,” Boimler deadpans. “You know they log everything we do down there.”

Mariner wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “I know.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re uptight, but you’re the one who was playing with simulations of me.”

“That sounds way worse than it actually is,” he cringes.

“No, it doesn’t. I would take some sexy action over your sad, sad trauma simulations any day. Next time I catch you, you’d better be having fun with it.”

“Mariner, what the _fuck_ —”

They dissolve into good natured bickering. She says something lewd and he rolls his eyes and elbows her and she squawks in protest and threatens to get him thrown in the brig. It’s normal, but it’s also not. There’s something new in the air between them that wasn’t there before. Tension, but not negative. It’s charged with. Something else.

Boimler doesn’t examine it too closely. Better to let it work itself out naturally. After all, he has all the time in the world now.

* * *


End file.
